Donald Trump pulls US out of Trans-Pacific deal, loosening Asia ties

January 24, 2017

Washington, Jan 24: US President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on Monday, distancing the country from its Asian allies, as China's influence in the region rises.

TransPacific

Fulfilling a campaign pledge to end American involvement in the 2015 pact, Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office pulling the United States out of the 12-nation TPP.

Trump, who wants to boost US manufacturing, said he would seek one-on-one trade deals with countries that would allow the United States to quickly terminate them in 30 days "if somebody misbehaves."

"We're going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that have taken everybody out of our country and taken companies out of our country," the Republican president said as he met with union leaders in the White House's Roosevelt Room.

The TPP accord, backed heavily by US business, was negotiated by former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration but never approved by Congress.

Obama had framed TPP, which excluded China, as an effort to write Asia's trade rules before Beijing could, establishing US economic leadership in the region as part of his "pivot to Asia."

China has proposed a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific and has also championed the Southeast Asian-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Trump has sparked worries in Japan and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific with his opposition to the TPP and his campaign demands for US allies to pay more for their security.

His trade stance mirrors a growing feeling among Americans that international trade deals have hurt the US job market. Republicans have long held the view that free trade is a must, but that mood has been changing.

"It's going to be very difficult to fight that fight," said Lanhee Chen, a Hoover Institution fellow who was domestic policy adviser to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. "Trump is reflecting a trend that has been apparent for many years."

Harry Kazianis, director of defence studies at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said Trump must now find an alternative way to reassure allies in Asia.

"This could include multiple bilateral trade agreements. Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam should be approached first as they are key to any new Asia strategy that President Trump will enact," he said.

Trump is also working to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to provide more favourable terms to the United States, telling reporters he would meet leaders of NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada to get the process started.

BUSINESS LEADERS

The new president met with a dozen American manufacturers at the White House on Monday, pledging to slash regulations and cut corporate taxes - but warning them he would take action on trade deals he felt were unfair.

Trump, who took office on Friday, has promised to bring factories back to the United States - an issue he said helped him win the Nov. 8 election. He has not hesitated to call out by name companies he thinks should bring outsourced production back home.

He said those businesses that choose to move plants outside the country would pay a price. "We are going to be imposing a very major border tax on the product when it comes in," Trump said.

He asked the group of chief executives from companies including Ford Motor Co, Dell Technologies Inc, Tesla Motors Inc and others to make recommendations in 30 days to stimulate manufacturing, Dow Chemical Co Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris told reporters.

Liveris said the CEOs discussed the border tax "quite a bit" with Trump, explaining "the sorts of industry that might be helped or hurt by that."

"Look: I would take the president at his word here. He's not going to do anything to harm competitiveness," Liveris said. "He's going to actually make us all more competitive."

At part of the meeting observed by reporters, Trump provided no details on how the border tax would work.

The US dollar fell to a seven-week low against a basket of other major world currencies on Monday, and global stock markets were shaky amid investor concerns about Trump's protectionist rhetoric.

"A company that wants to fire all of its people in the United States, and build some factory someplace else, and then thinks that that product is going to just flow across the border into the United States - that's not going to happen," he said.

CUT TAXES AND REGULATIONS

The president told the CEOs he would like to cut corporate taxes to the 15% to 20% range, down from current statutory levels of 35% - a pledge that will require cooperation from the Republican-led US Congress.

But he said business leaders have told him that reducing regulations is even more important.

"We think we can cut regulations by 75%. Maybe more," Trump told business leaders.

"When you want to expand your plant, or when Mark wants to come in and build a big massive plant, or when Dell wants to come in and do something monstrous and special – you're going to have your approvals really fast," Trump said, referring to Mark Fields, CEO of Ford.

Fields said he was encouraged by the tone of the meeting.

"I know I come out with a lot of confidence that the president is very, very serious on making sure that the United States economy is going to be strong and have policies - tax, regulatory or trade - to drive that," he said.

Trump told the executives that companies were welcome to negotiate with governors to move production between states.

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News Network
July 25,2020

Madrid, Jul 25: Spain is witnessing a new surge in virus" coronavirus infections with nearly a thousand cases daily, a month after lifting the pandemic lockdown.

The country is reinstating both voluntary guidelines and mandatory restrictions that it had lifted on June 21, The Washington Post reported.

Spain on Wednesday reported over 224 outbreaks and 2,622 virus" coronavirus cases. According to a report in Washington Post, the new surge is attributed primarily to seasonal farmworkers, people attending family get-togethers and nightclub partyers.

On Thursday, the health ministry reported an additional 971 cases.

"The majority are related to fruit collection and also to the spaces where measures to avoid contact are relaxed," Spain Health Minister Salvador Illa told parliament. "We have to call on citizens to not lose respect for the virus not to be afraid of it, but not to lose respect for it either."

The government of Spain lifted all restrictions put in place to combat virus" coronavirus on June 21 and declared 'a new normal'. 

The virus" coronavirus pandemic till then had killed 24,000 people and infected more than 2,70,166.

Countries around the world are witnessing the second surge of virus" coronavirus. The resurgence could threaten the economic bounce Spain was hoping to get from vacationers eager for summer fun.

The surge in cases has been greatest in the northeastern region of Catalonia with more than 7,953 new confirmed cases since July 10.

Spain's National Epidemiological Survey has predicted that the rate of increase more than doubled in the past three weeks.

Meanwhile, the Catalan government reverted to pre-June 21 confinement rules in Barcelona and a dozen other municipalities in the metropolitan area, as well as in Figueras, Vilafant, La Noguera and Lleida.

Authorities have ordered bars and restaurants to limit indoor occupancy to 50 per cent, reduced sports to fewer than 10 people, closed night clubs and gyms and blocked some cultural activities.

The epidemiologist in charge of the region's biggest hospital warned in an interview last week with the Spanish daily El Pais that the situation in the agricultural hub of Lleida, located about 100 miles west of Barcelona, "had clearly gotten out of hand."

"Nobody foresaw that there would be a number of people coming from abroad to pick fruit in unfavourable conditions and that they might be infected," said epidemiologist Magda Campins of Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona. "And when the infections began to be detected, it was hard to keep tabs on the cases and their contacts because some of them, although they should have been in isolation, got away because they needed to earn money."

Catalonia's Department of Labour, Social Affairs and Family is using a hotel in Lleida to quarantine fruit workers who test positive for COVID-19 but are unable to isolate at home.

In the capital of Madrid, which was the epicentre during the pandemic's first wave in the spring, authorities reported 710 new cases in the past week. The use of face masks is widespread, but the region has shied away from making them mandatory in public.

Madrid's regional health secretary, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, defended that position while citing an uptick in infections in the under-40 age group. He told young people not to let down their guard.

"We can't take even one step backwards. Young people have to be aware of the responsibility they have," Ruiz Escudero said in a news conference Thursday. "I ask them to use the face mask and to maintain a safe distance."

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News Network
June 18,2020

Amsterdam, Jun 18: A statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been vandalised here in the capital of Netherlands by unknown miscreants with graffiti and spray painting, amid a wave of attacks on controversial figures following the protests around the world after the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd, according to media reports.

The statue of Gandhi on the Churchilllaan in Amsterdam was covered with red paint and the pedestal has 'racist' and an abbreviation for an expletive against the police chalked on it, Metro, the Dutch newspaper, reported.

According to alderman Rutger Groot Wassink, the municipality will file a declaration for daubing.

"Obviously, we are opposed to any form of vandalism and daubing of these things is completely unacceptable," the city official was quoted as saying by the AD.nl.

"It is logical that we will file a declaration, the image will be cleaned," Wassink said.

It is not yet known who is behind the daubing. An employee of the Kunstwacht, who provides maintenance and repairs, says that the cleaning work can take hours.

A 75-year-old man saw the daubs on Wednesday and called the municipality. “I have lived here for forty years and I have never experienced this. I have been watching the statue for years," the man said.

Since the death of 46-year-old Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis, US, and subsequent worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, there has been much debate about street names and statues of people with a colonial past. All over the world, statues of controversial historical figures are brought down or defaced.

Recently, images and buildings have been defaced in various places that refer to the colonial past of the Netherlands, including the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and the statue of Piet Hein in Rotterdam. These are anti-racist expressions that follow the death of Floyd through a white police officer, Metro reported.

Gandhi was known as a champion of human rights and non-violence. But in his twenties, which he spent in South Africa, he still called black people “troublesome, very dirty and they live like beasts” and found that the white people were the “dominant race”. Later he renounced those ideas, the report added.

The statue was unveiled on the Churchillaan on October 2, 1990 in honour of Gandhi's 121st birthday.

The design was made by the sculptor Karel Gomes, who died in 2016. At the time, the plan for the statue came from the Hindu organisation Triveda.

Gandhi is depicted walking, featuring robes around the body, slippers on the feet, a book in one hand and a stick in the other.

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News Network
February 12,2020

Feb 12: China on Wednesday reported another drop in the number of new cases of a viral infection and 97 more deaths, pushing the total dead past 1,100 as postal services worldwide said delivery was being affected by the cancellation of many flights to China.

The National Health Commission said 2,015 new cases had been reported over the last 24 hours, declining for a second day. The total number of cases in mainland China reached 44,653, although many experts say a large number of others infected have gone uncounted.

The additional deaths raised the mainland toll to 1,113. Two people have died elsewhere, one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.

In the port city of Tianjin, just southeast of Beijing, a cluster of cases has been traced to a department store in Baodi district. One-third of Tianjin’s 104 confirmed cases are in Baodi, the Xinhua state news agency reported.

A salesperson working in the store’s small home appliance section became the first individual in the cluster to be diagnosed on Jan. 31, Xinhua said. The store was already closed at that point, then disinfected on Feb. 1. Nevertheless, several more diagnoses soon followed.

The next to have their infections confirmed were also salespeople at the store. They had not visited Wuhan recently and, with the exception of one married couple, the patients worked in different sections of the store and did not know one another, according to Xinhua.

Japan’s Health Ministry said that 39 new cases have been confirmed on a cruise ship quarantined at Yokohama, bringing the total to 174 on the Diamond Princess.

The U.S. Postal Service said that it was “experiencing significant difficulties” in dispatching letters, parcels and express mail to China, including Hong Kong and Macau.

Both the U.S. and Singapore Post said in notes to their global counterparts that they are no longer accepting items destined for China, “until sufficient transport capacity becomes available.”

The Chinese mail service, China Post, said it was disinfecting postal offices, processing centers and vehicles to ensure the virus doesn’t spread via the mail and to protect staff.

It said the crisis is also impacting mail that transits China to other destinations including North Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The World Health Organization has named the disease caused by the virus as COVID-19, avoiding any animal or geographic designation to avoid stigmatization and to show the illness comes from a new coronavirus discovered in 2019.

The illness was first reported in December and connected to a food market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak has largely been concentrated.

Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese epidemiologist, said that while the virus outbreak in China may peak this month, the situation at the center of the crisis remains more challenging.

“We still need more time of hard working in Wuhan,” he said, describing the isolation of infected patients there a priority.

“We have to stop more people from being infected,” he said. “The problem of human-to-human transmission has not yet been resolved.”

Without enough facilities to handle the number of cases, Wuhan has been building prefabricated hospitals and converting a gym and other large spaces to house patients and try to isolate them from others.

China’s official media reported Tuesday that the top health officials in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, have been relieved of their duties. No reasons were given, although the province’s initial response was deemed slow and ineffective. Speculation that higher-level officials could be sacked has simmered, but doing so could spark political infighting and be a tacit admission of responsibility.

The virus outbreak has become the latest political challenge for the party and its leader, Xi Jinping, who despite accruing more political power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, has struggled to handle crises on multiple fronts. These include a sharply slowing domestic economy, the trade war with the U.S. and pushback on China’s increasingly aggressive foreign policies.

China is struggling to restart its economy after the annual Lunar New Year holiday was extended to try to curb the spread of the virus. About 60 million people are under virtual quarantine and many others are still working at home.

In Hong Kong, the diagnosis of four people living in an apartment building prompted worried comparisons with the deadly SARS pandemic of 17 years ago.

More than 100 people were evacuated from the building after a 62-year-old woman diagnosed with the virus was found living 10 floors directly below a man who was earlier confirmed with the virus.

Health officials called it a precautionary measure and sought to assuage fears of an epidemic, dismissing similarities to the SARS community outbreak at the Amoy Gardens housing estate in 2003.

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